BY JOHN V. PETROCELLI
Bullshitting involves intentionally or unintentionally, consciously or unconsciously, communicating with little to no regard or concern for truth, genuine evidence, and/or established semantic, logical, systemic, or empirical knowledge.1, 2 As such, bullshitting is often characterized by, but not limited to, using rhetorical strategies designed to disregard truth, evidence and/or established knowledge, such as exaggerating or embellishing one’s knowledge, competence, or skills in a particular area or talking about things one knows nothing about in order to impress, fit in with, influence, or persuade others
Bullshitting is not simply the act of engaging in casual conversation, nor is it the same as lying. Lying involves actually knowing and caring about the truth. The bullshitter doesn’t know what the truth is, doesn’t care what the truth is, and isn’t even trying to know. In fact, what the bullshitter says may actually be correct, but he wouldn’t know it because he isn’t paying any attention to truth or evidence for his claims. Bullshitting also has more to do with intentions than content. I may say “Pluto is a planet” and you may say “Pluto is a not planet.” But if I don’t care about the truth of that statement, and you on the other hand have considered the definitions of a planet, etc., then I’m probably bullshitting and you are not.